Thailand Halted "AAL" Quanzhou Cave Shoes Brand Shrinking

The once popular cave shoes have ushered in the freezing period of the industry. Last week, the listed company announced the third quarter earnings report, the first time it revealed the surprising news of its brand "AAL": "AAL" will stop operation. As a derivative brand after the listing of Tai ya, "AAL" has been suspended for two years and the industry can not help but sigh. This short survival road is also many Quanzhou. Crocs The epitome of brand.

Quanzhou's hole shoe industry chain, after the originator Crocs (Kaloch) swept the globe, set off the peak of brand building. According to a press survey, in 2009~2011, more than 10 shoe brands were produced around Quanzhou, mostly from footwear manufacturers like rubber shoes in Tai ya, but there are only a few left. Jinjiang unveiled its first hole shoe brand The "happy and fast" enterprise -- Fujian Wan Jia Xin Light Industry Development Co., Ltd., has not been long since the brand was launched.

Crocs (Carol chi) is also not very good. In this year's semi annual report, the public announcement will close or reorganize the 75~100 rooms of 600 direct outlets worldwide due to poor performance.

　　 [event]

Continuous loss of Tai Ya halted "AAL" brand

According to the third quarter earnings report released by Thailand last week, the "AAL" brand product invested by Xiamen's Rui Hang company in June 2013 has been temporarily suspended due to market and other reasons. Some losses have been caused by the handling of shops, inventory and team dissolution. But the announcement did not reveal how much the loss was.

The emergency brake of "AAL" is not too sudden from the performance of Thailand. In the third quarter of this year, Thailand's revenue was 85 million yuan, net profit loss of 13 million 880 thousand yuan, the first three quarters of the total revenue of 246 million yuan, net profit has lost 29 million yuan. Thailand expects that this year's loss will be between 40 million yuan and ~5500 million yuan.

More than Tai Ya is suffering from performance difficulties. As the originator of cave shoes, Crocs (Kaloch) has lost the aura of the past. According to the latest earnings report, Crocs revenue increased to $376 million 900 thousand in the first half of this year, but net profit fell sharply from 45% to $19 million 500 thousand. At the same time, Crocs also announced a restructuring plan to close or reorganize the 75~100 rooms in 600 global direct stores, and reduce 183 employees (3.6% of the total staff). It will also cut down the type of 30%~40% so as to concentrate on selling casual styles such as sandals and road shoes.

　 [industry survey]

A short way to build a brand

Around 2007, the Crocs hole shoe became popular in Quanzhou. Shoemaking The industrial chain brings a dawn. "It's not difficult to make holes in shoes. Many shoe factories in Jinjiang have production capacity." Chen Xiao, a personage in the industry, said he had run a famous brand of Dong Dong shoes in Quanzhou, but left at the beginning of this year. With the popularity of cave shoes, Quanzhou has gradually emerged as a brand of cave shoes, such as merry, fast, cool, beetles, etc., with a peak of more than 10 brands. And there are more shoe brands without brands. In the pit of Jinjiang, some enterprises that originally produced "garden shoes" have also transformed into producing cave shoes. The cave shoes produced in Quanzhou apparently go the same route as Crocs. In terms of price, compared with the price of hundreds of thousands of Crocs, the Quanzhou version of the cave shoes is more than 100 yuan. Such a price also determines its channels are supermarkets, small department stores and other channels, as well as later electric providers, or even stalls.

However, these brands gradually fade out of the market in the years after their birth. Reporters learned that today, Wan Jia Xin has no longer produced "happy fly" hole shoes products, the brand is also snow. At present, the success of Dong shoes approved by the industry is the "frog head" hole shoe COQUI launched by Quanzhou cool shoe industry. Reporters contacted the company several times, but they were not interviewed. Public information shows that the brand has more than 1000 stores and counters in mainland China, and is also working with large chain supermarkets such as Carrefour and WAL-MART.

　　 [industry reflection]

Natural defects of cave shoes

From a few months ago, Liu Heng (a pseudonym) began to contact the "AAL" disbanded work, for the "AAL" outage many feelings. "First of all, cave shoes have inherent defects, no matter how it changes, this defect can not be avoided." Liu Heng said, from the material, the hole shoe is "covered feet", which determines that it can only get the market in the two quarter of spring and summer, and the extension of autumn and winter products is very difficult. "AAL" also made a lot of tide shoes, but it never sold. In this regard, Chen Xiao also corroborated. "Carlo is a seasonal shoe, and has been killed by consumers. The people who buy it are not for sports, they can not become mass consumption. He said that the sales peak of cave shoes was in spring and summer, and sales in the 5 months of 4~8 month accounted for 70% of the annual sales, while in the other 7 months, only 30%. The defects of the selling season also affected the development of the channel. No one shop was willing to sell shoes for only two quarters. The instability of the channel was very obvious. From the first line of market when it was born, it fell to the two or three line market until it became obsolete.

In addition, cave shoes have been deep in the "carcinogenic door" and let it be badly hurt. "Two years ago, no one of the foreign customers ordered a hole in the shoe." Mr. Zhuang, a general manager of a famous shoe factory in Jinjiang, told reporters that he was a large number of famous foundry cave shoes abroad. Previously, foreign media have reported that according to the research results, many plastic "cave shoes" contain carcinogens, which may endanger their health. Originally, the share of cave shoes is very small. These big names simply don't do it.

Another flaw is that as a subdivision from abroad, hole shoes are only a supplement to footwear. "Bought the product of cave shoes, almost will not buy second pairs again." Liu Heng said, cave shoes are not high frequency consumer products, will not get consumers repeated consumption.

　　 Misunderstanding in market operation

On the channel, AAL walks from the electricity supplier to the physical store two legs. According to public reports, the AAL brand has been involved in the domestic market in early 2013, with dozens of outlets nationwide. "AAL takes the path of traditional brand operation, wants to make big and full products, but it is precisely this point, let it go into a misunderstanding." Liu Heng said that from the brand, the design to the channel, the growth path of "AAL" is perfect, but this is perfect, but consumers do not buy it. For example, the product line extension of "AAL", but it can not be sold in sales.

The extension of product line is to change the property of cave shoes. Take "AAL" as an example. More than 8 of the tide shoes displayed on its Tmall flagship store have nothing to do with the original "big head hole shoes". Public reports show that the "AAL" product strategy is to use Tai Ya's technological strength to design the most classic style through the trend of the international team. With the coolest technology, build the hottest trend and salute the centenary. After more than a year's efforts, more than 200 products have been listed in the Chinese market in the second quarter of 2013. However, the response of the market is not satisfactory. "In the current Chinese market, cave shoes are after all a product of subdivision, and consumers will still not recognize them if they are extended to other products." Liu Heng thinks.

However, in the interview, some people think that this is a problem that will arise in the Chinese market. "Compared with the European and American markets, the Chinese market is still very immature." Lin Fuzhi, general manager of Wan Jia Xin group, told reporters that in fact, "happy flying" did not enter the domestic market in real sense. Only after several trial sales, it was found that the Chinese market was very chaotic, high school and low prices were flooded together, inferior products could sell good prices, but good products were hard to sell, lacking rationality and standardization. Sales channels and market ideas are different from their own assumptions. After weighing them, the company finally decided to give up the project.

　 [industry outlook]

There is still potential to enter the foreign market.

In the final analysis, the brand name of the cave shoes has suffered from acclimatization when transplanted from abroad to the Chinese market. In the future, what is the way out for cave shoes?

After abandoning the Chinese market, Wan Jia Xin chose the OEM card for the US market. "We have done a good job in the US market, and now we can't keep up with the orders." Lin Fu said that in recent years, although not running their own brand, but they still follow the footsteps of foreign countries in product research and development, such as how to make cave shoes more comfortable and change from raw materials. This is also due to the maturity of the American market, where almost every brand has been clearly positioned and what kind of brand the consumer wants.

Liu Heng said some investors had planned to buy the brand after winning the news of "AAL". Therefore, where the fate of "AAL" will go is still unknown. However, those moulds left behind in R & D design are said to be very popular in foreign markets. Even without brand, "AAL" still has the potential to enter the foreign market.

　　 Enter Chao brand integrated store

Even if we failed to gain recognition in the Chinese market, the brand exploration of "AAL" in the field of cave shoes has provided a reference model for the industry, that is, developing towards the tide brand. "Cave shoes must be made of tide shoes. Now, many R & D thinking in Jinjiang has not been upgraded to launch a single product, and it still stays in the era of traditional big goods, leaving only single item." Chen Xiao said, at present, mostly cottage and imitation research and development thinking, market goods too much. Hole shoe industry will not die, depends on whether or not to follow the market.

"Cave shoes have many functions, such as outdoors, walking along the lake, etc., and are not afraid of water, dirty or light." Liu Heng said that the hole shoe is a niche market. If we can make a strong specialization in the field of subdivision, focus on a specific subdivision, and achieve the ultimate consumer experience, there is still a good market.

Focusing on market segmentation has become a widely accepted view in the industry. "If the Chinese market is so big, we will do a niche market and make good product positioning." Lin Fuzhi believes that cave shoes are non mainstream products, not products, but how to sell. China's consumer demand is more and more mature, for example, it will be compared before, but now it is more rational. If we can plan well in marketing and network system, we still have great market potential.

In marketing channels, many people do not agree with the traditional practice of opening a store. "There are many overseas brand stores, but the domestic sales channel is still very simple." Liu Heng believes that Chao brand integrated store can not only reduce channel costs, but actually help product sales.